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As contemporary Korean literature receives increasing acclaim in English-language circles—Han Kang’s The Vegetarian won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize—it is perhaps inevitable that efforts are being made to introduce older Korean classics to the English language mainstream. One of of these is Sweet Potato, a newly-translated volume of short stories by Kim Tongin (or Kim Dong-in) written mostly in the Japanese colonial period between the Wars.

“Kim Tongin’s literary achievements had important literary historical significance, leading to the establishment of modern Korean fiction and its rapid popularization,” writes Youngmin Kwon in the introduction. Kim’s place in Korean literary history is perhaps a matter for scholars; not being one, I can only come to this collection more or less as a general reader would.

Kim Dong-in (1900 – 1951), together with Yi Kwang-su, is one of early modern Korean literature’s representative writers of “pure” fiction. His debut work “The Sorrow of the Weak,” which appeared in the journal Changjo (Creation) in 1919, is considered the first Korean short story to focus in...

Kim Dong-in (1900 – 1951), together with Yi Kwang-su, is one of early modern Korean literature’s representative writers of “pure” fiction. His debut work “The Sorrow of the Weak,” which appeared in the journal Changjo (Creation) in 1919, is considered the first Korean short story to focus in...

Kim Dong-in is one of early modern Korean literature’s representative writers of “pure” fiction. Kim declared that fiction should create an autonomous world whose value inhered within itself. In “Tale of a Mad Painter”, Kim’s aestheticist tendencies are on full display. The protagonist Solgeo...

Kim Dong-in is one of early modern Korean literature’s representative writers of “pure” fiction. Kim declared that fiction should create an autonomous world whose value inhered within itself. The short story “Lashing”, in showing conflicts among prisoners under extreme duress in jail, exposes...

Born to a wealthy family in Pyongyang, Kim Tongin (1900-1951) is one of Korea s earliest and most respected modern writers whose naturalist fiction brilliantly depicts Korean life during a period of...

As contemporary Korean literature receives increasing acclaim in English-language circles – Han Kang’s The Vegetarian won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize – it is perhaps inevitable that efforts are being made to introduce older Korean classics to the English language mainstream. One of...